Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1887-11-07

IL is related that an inebriated miner, irn-
peded by mud and drink before its door
was found gazing at its remarkable facade
with an expression of the deepest despou-
dency. II hev lived free life, partner"
he explained thickly to the Samaritan who
succored him, "and every time since I've
been on this six weeks jamboree might
have kalkilated it would come to this.
Snakes I've seen afore now, and rats I'm
not unfamiliar with, but when it comes to
the starn Of a ship risin' up out of the
street, | reckon it's time to pass in my
checks" 1T is Il ship, you blasted old
soaker," said the Samaritan CURLY.
1t was indeed ship, A ship run
ashore and abandoned on the beach years
before by her gold seeking crew, with the
debris Of her scattered stores and cargo,
overtaken by the wild growth OF the
strange city and the reclamation Of the
muddy fiat, wherein she lay hopelessly
imbedded; her retreat cut Off by wharves
and quays and breakwater, jostled ut
first by sheds, and then impacted in a
block Of solid warehouses and dwellings,,
her rudder, port and counter boarded in,
and now gazing hopeessly through her
cabin windows upon the busy street be-
fore her. But still ship despite her
transformation. The faintest line of con
tour yet left visible spoke of the buoy
ancy of another element; the balustrade
OF her roof was Enthusiastically taffrail
The rain slipped from her swelling sides
with a certain lingering touch of the sea;
the soil around her was still treacherous
with its suggestions, and even the wind
whstled nautically over her chimney
If, in the fury Of some southwesterly gale,
she had one night slipped her strange
moorings and left shining track through
the lower town to the distant sea- no one
would have been surprised.
Least Of all, perhaps, her present owner
and possessor, Mr.. Ahner Mott For, by
the irony of circumstances, Mr. Mott was
n far western farmer, who had never seen
n ship before, nor larger stream of water
than n tributary of the Missouri river
In n spirit, half of fascination half of
speculation, he had bought her at the
time of her abandonment. and had since
mortCaged his ranch at Petaluma, with
his live stock, to defray the expense of
filing in the land where she stood and
the improvements of the vicinity. He
had transferred his household goods and
his only daughter to her cabin, and had
divided the space between decks" and
her hold into lodging rooms and lofts for
the storage OF goods. 1t could hardly be
said that the investment had been profita-
BILE. His tenants vaguely recognized that
his occupancy was a sentimental rather
than a commercial speculation, and often
generously lent themselves to the illusion
by not paying their rent Others treated
their own tenancy ms n joke-a quaint
recreation born of the childlike familiar
ity of frontier intercourse A few had
left, earelessly abandoning their unsala-
BILE goods to their landlord with great
cheerfulness and sense of favor. Oc
casionally Mr. Abner Mott, in a prac-
teal relapse, ragged against the derelicts,
and talked of dispossessing them, or even
dismantlng his tenement, but he was
easily placated by it compliment to the
dear old ship" or an effort made by
some tenant to idealize his apartment A
photographer who had ingeniously util-
lied the forecastle for a gallery accessible
from the bows in the next street., paid no
further tribute than a portrait of the
pretty face of Roscy Mott. The super
stitious reverence in which Abner Mott
held his monstrous fancy was naturally
enhanced by his purely bucolc exaggera-
ton OF its real functions and its native
element. This yer keel has sailed, and
sailed, and sailed. - he would explain with
some inconEruty of illustration, Gin a
bee line. maxim tracks for days runnin'.
I reckon more storms and Billiards hez
tackled her then you ken shake stick at
She's stampeded whales afore now, and
sloshed round with pirates and freebcoters
in and outer the Spanish main and across
lots from Marcelleys where she was rared.
And yer she sits peaceful like just ez il
she'd never been outer a pertater patch,
and hadn't plowed the sea with fo'sails
and studdin' sails and them things ca
vortin' round her masts''
Abner Motifs enthusiasm was shared
by his daughter, but with more imagina-
ton, and an intelligence stimulated by
the scant literature of her fathers emf
grant wagon and the few books found on
the cabin shelves. But to her the strange
she'll she inhabited suggested more of the
great world than the rude, chaotic civilf-
cation she saw from the cabin windows or
met in the persons of her fathers dodgers.
Shut mp for days in this quaint tenement
she had seen it change from the enchanted
playground of her childish fancy to the
theatre of her active maidenhood, hut
without losing her ideal romance in it.
She had translated its history in her own
way, read its quaint nautical hieroglyphics
after her own fashion, and possessed her
self OF its secrets. She had in fancy
made voyages in it TO foreign lands,
had heard the accents of n softer tongue on
its decks, and on summer nights, from the
roof Of the quarter deck, had seen mel
lower consultations take the place of the
hard metallic glitter OF the Californian
skies. Sometimes in har isolatson e..